The Portland daily press., 1887-04-23
THE MAINE STATE PRESS.
AT PORT STANLEY.
Adventures of Midshipman-A Wild
Goose Chase and What Game Of


Adventures of a Midsh ipman-A Wild
Goose Chase and What Game Of
Ii.
STRAITS OF MAGELLAN, Feb. 2, 1887.
We are now at Elizabeth Island, the omar
antine station of Sandy Point, but before /
give you any late news l must tell of my
adventures at Port Stanley. 1 took the
dinghy on the morning Of Jan 21st, and with
three apprentice boys to pull the boat and
carry my game, l sailed for the ''p'nt," where
the Englishman said we could find Fares"
| chose particularly bad day, as l found to
my cost, for the wind was blowing gale,
and every half hour brought us alternate
squalls of rain and hail; rain that beat
right through our clothes and hail that near
ly drew blood from every place where it
struck bare skin. But between squalls the
sun would come out beautifully and would
raise the temperature nearly to COZ. That
was enough to dry US completely, but not
enough to dry our feet, as we were always
nearly up to our ankles in the turf and water
that comprise peat bog. We sailed about
three miles and landed in cove that ran
away up into the land and ended in small
sandy beach. Having landed we ran the
boat away up on the beach and capsized her.
Crawling under her we waited until the next
shower had passed over. and then started
hunting. We tried to form line and chase
rabbits down on to the rocks where could
shoot them, but we did not make enough
noise or did not move fast enough to scare
them or-anyway we saw that our vocation
was not rabbit hunting, SO we started off on
wild goose chase down the shore. Until
then / had never realized what wild goose
chase means. suppose you don't either,
so | will give my experience. Geese
have preference for flying to windward,
and you always find yourself to leeward OF
every flock Of geese you see, so you have to
make detour of half mile to get the wealth
er gauge of them, Then you creep down un-
til you get almost within gunshot Of them
when the nearest shows the white feather,
spreads his wings, runs along the ground
few steps and then, rising, flies directly away
from you with alllthe others at his back. In
unfolding his wings the goose exposes a row
of white feathers, and since that expresses
his intention to vamoose, suppose this pecu-
liarity gives rise to the expression showing
the white feather" l found that in the
focks that ran across the tendency was to
fly to windward for short time and then TO
sweep around and fly down to leeward, the
whole flight being in parabolic arc. Twice
they followed these tactics, and flying over
me twice they lost one Of their number. The
fret fiu,a I o.,a I xuoc 1,,i0hffly
prised; it was my first goose, but could not
exhibit him as he fell into the water and
drifted off to sea. The next time they flew
over me L had more experience, and Init two,
but dropped only one of them. crept up
over hill and shot another. Another
wounded in the water of little lake, and
afterwards shot him after he had padded
ashore, and then l finished by finding and
shooting one other goose that had wound
ed. We saw two little rabbits and gave
chase in both cases, firing at them with shot
gun and revolver. One we cornered in the
cleft of rock and riddled the poor creature
with bullets and shot, SO that his corpse
finally rolled out. The other one jumped Iup
in front Of me; l fired both barrels at him,
missed, and then, giving chase, knocked him
over with the butt end of the gun. That
only staggered him little, but my assist
ants captured him alive and kept him in my
game bag, and the poor creature was either
stepped upon or smothered.
After we had cooled down from this ex-
citing chase, and the cooling was materially
aided by heavy rain squall, we started for
the boat. When l started from the boat
/ had my erur op,n,unitior oop,aho0 and oil
skin coat. These gradually transferred to
the assistant huntsmen as grew tired.
early discarded the oilskin coat because
| got about as wet with it on as without it.
| The game bag went on to another's should
ers just as soon as the lunch was eaten out
| of it. In loading my gun Ia muzzle loader /
had to have the assistance Of two 9TH
ers, one to charge the gun and the
other to ram home the charge; so
the ammunition had to be trans
ferred. Finally after / had fred my
last scharge, the gun was of no further use
to me; SO, resigning it to an armor bearer, l
| lit cigar and taking my place at the head Of
the procession stalked boldly on-the 9TH
ers followed at distances corresponding to
| the weight that they carried. did not think
| it worth while to ask them to carry me as
they would probably jolt me too much to en-
| joy the full blessing of my cigar. In this
way / carried my game and accoutrements
| for about three miles, and reached the boat
in good order and just in time to get under
the boat out Of rain shower Meanwhile
the wind was blowing tornado, but we put
all our goods aboard the dinghy and showed
- bo 1rif
rocks and nearly punched hole in her
bilges, but we coaxed her off with oars and
boathooks and finally got under way, stand
| ing out of the cove. We stood out and when
we got out we stood stock still. The wind
| increasing every moment struck us fair as
we doubled the outer point of the bay. Try
| ing our hardest we could not make Roadway
but the wind picked us up and foated us
gaily out toward the open sea. Then thole-
pin broke and one of our three oars was rem
dered useless. We could fight no longer
against an ever increasing gale, and l had to
head her in toward the sandy beach; but we
had dr;ftad so Cor to the leeward that 1t was
almost as hard to 60 back as to 60 ahead
Finally after pull of q good hour and a
half we made the distance OF a quarter OF
mile or less, and got back to our sandy
beach. There we capsized the boat and
banked sand up against the windward side,
while we built fire on the leeward side.
Our fuel was damp brushwood and even now
l can almost taste the smoke that that fire
made. Every gust of wind would manage to
drive enough smoke under that boat to cure
anybody or anything that sought shelter
there. My feet were wet and very cold. l
could not get them dry-the thermometer
was down to Az F and our fire could not or
would not give out any heat and we could
get nothing but dense clouds Of smoke out Of
it, and can say for myself that was per-
fectly miserable. One Of the boys also had,
wet feet and he was laid up as l was,
but the three others, having feet whose
warmth envied and coveted. hustled about.
covering the boat with the sail, furnishing
f,,ol Gathering brTshwood for beds heating